Hi all, I have a 3cm crack in the deck of my starboard......... and it's slightly soft when I push it

Any pointers on fixing it would be much appreciated

Search The Boardlady, it will give you lots of info on what you need to do. Not an impossible job for a home repair

Where is it?
What model?The reason I ask is this repair is complex (ish) if in the middle of a board you jump. If its 6" from the nose of a 10 y/o freeride or learner board, it can be reallllly basic if you want it to

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Mark _australia said..
Where is it?
What model?The reason I ask is this repair is complex (ish) if in the middle of a board you jump. If its 6" from the nose of a 10 y/o freeride or learner board, it can be reallllly basic if you want it to

Hi Mark, It's a Starboard Atomiq so not jumping but I sail in reasonable chop. The crack is 10cm in front of the footpad.

Cheers

It's a decent job.
Probably not for a first time fixer , unless handy with tools .

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kuotadriver said..

Hi Mark, It's a Starboard Atomiq so not jumping but I sail in reasonable chop. The crack is 10cm in front of the footpad.

Cheers

If that is not from impact (do you recall knee strike, dropping it etc..?), it could be major surgery. In that location a delam that turns into a crack means a board that was going snap but you've been lucky.

I had a Fanatic Falcon (2009) which went soft on the deck in front of the foot pads, both sides. It didnt crack though. I think it was caused by gybing in chop as it was where the new front foot was initially positioned during the step gybe. I followed the injecting foaming epoxy resin procedure on boardlady.com. That worked for a while, but I think as I did it in the UK winter at 8c or so temperature the foam didnt expand so much as it does in 20c.
I think your carbon AtomIQ is a similar light build to my old Falcon.

ps is it quite a large area that has gone soft, or just where the crack is? If its just where the crack is its probably an impact.
pps if its a crack and larger soft area, sounds like some serious repair work needed.
It depends on how much the board is worth now. My old Falcon wasnt worth spending a lot of money on and my fix lasted a year, should have been 2 years I reckon if I had done it better.

And is it the biaxial carbon model and the crack nicely in a straight at 45deg?

Thanks guys. The deck only flexes where the crack is (crack runs across the board). I haven't dropped it so it must have happened on the water...possibly smacked with a harness hook? The model is the 2016 wood core version of the Atomiq.
Thanks

Pic gonna help here - impact is different to a stress fracture. very

One thing to be mindful of. Cracks in front of the footstraps could be a sign of an impending buckling of the whole front of the board. It comes from standing in the footstraps holding the back of the board down while the front gets pounded by chop and such.

This happened to me on a custom board a few years ago. The board builder took the board back and beefed up the area in front of the footstraps. This worked well.

^^^YES

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PhilUK said..
I had a Fanatic Falcon (2009) which went soft on the deck in front of the foot pads, both sides. It didnt crack though.

Guess where Fantic decided to have a join in the PVC foam sandwich layer.....? To save 200g
They could have moved it forward a bit.... or not done it at all, as other brands don't.
Seen a few break there. it is not rocket surgery people.

Weight gain? Water inside maybe...
Otherwise, drill inject pu glue, some fiberglass and you're done.

Zoom out a bit so we can see if its inline with, or across, the centreline.

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Mark _australia said..

PhilUK said..
I had a Fanatic Falcon (2009) which went soft on the deck in front of the foot pads, both sides. It didnt crack though.

Guess where Fantic decided to have a join in the PVC foam sandwich layer.....? To save 200g
They could have moved it forward a bit.... or not done it at all, as other brands don't.
Seen a few break there. it is not rocket surgery people.

Did they do that in 2009? The soft patch was quite a big area. Must have been 30cm * 30cm.
I've still got the board as a backup. I might cut it apart when I dont need it.

That's bad looking deck grip.
Has it been repaired before ?

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Shifu said..
Zoom out a bit so we can see if its inline with, or across, the centreline.

It's at right angles to the centreline.

Deck grip looks different around the crack, versus farther away, maybe it is an old repair going bad. Try tuning board upside down and place paper towels under the crack with a pillow pressing paper towels against crack and see if water comes out overnight.

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Sandman1221 said..
Deck grip looks different around the crack, versus farther away, maybe it is an old repair going bad. Try tuning board upside down and place paper towels under the crack with a pillow pressing paper towels against crack and see if water comes out overnight.

Initially I put some solarez on the crack to see if it would seal - that's why the deck looks a bit different. Worked okay at first but eventually the crack opened up again. Luckily it doesn't seem to have let any water in. I was wondering if it would be best to cut around the crack, fill with epoxy and fibreglass over the top?

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kuotadriver said..

Sandman1221 said..
Deck grip looks different around the crack, versus farther away, maybe it is an old repair going bad. Try tuning board upside down and place paper towels under the crack with a pillow pressing paper towels against crack and see if water comes out overnight.

Initially I put some solarez on the crack to see if it would seal - that's why the deck looks a bit different. Worked okay at first but eventually the crack opened up again. Luckily it doesn't seem to have let any water in. I was wondering if it would be best to cut around the crack, fill with epoxy and fibreglass over the top?

I am no expert on fixing boards. But if you are sure no water is in there and the deck is not soft on either side of the crack, I would do the following: 1) put board out in the sun crack side up with vent plug removed for an hour or two, then bring inside and allow to lay same way overnight, just want to make sure it is dry inside; 2) get some good marine grade "thickened" epoxy like West Systems SixTen and maybe some fiberglass just to be safe (a strong but flexible epoxy so if you step on repair it will not crack), and after roughening up deck with sandpaper and cleaning with isopropanol cover crack and deck all around for 1/2 inch (so 1 inch wide area that is at least 1/8" thick) let cure 3 days before doing anything. Then get some acrylic dark green and yellow paint paint in 1 oz bottles from a hobby shop and mix on plastic with a fine paint brush to get the right color, and then paint epoxy to match board. If the crack is just on the surface you should be fine. But pressing around it will tell you if it is a through crack or a surface crack. A surface crack will still have glass layers for support under it, a through crack will not and then you need some glass.

And if that is an area you hit with your foot often, think about covering it with dual density deck padding, both sides of course. I did that on my board to cover some slightly soft spots (but no cracks) where the mast was hitting the concave deck ridge, and it is good.

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kuotadriver said..

Sandman1221 said..
Deck grip looks different around the crack, versus farther away, maybe it is an old repair going bad. Try tuning board upside down and place paper towels under the crack with a pillow pressing paper towels against crack and see if water comes out overnight.

Initially I put some solarez on the crack to see if it would seal - that's why the deck looks a bit different. Worked okay at first but eventually the crack opened up again. Luckily it doesn't seem to have let any water in. I was wondering if it would be best to cut around the crack, fill with epoxy and fibreglass over the top?

If theres no impact damage, and no immediate explanation as to how the crack got there, then its something to worry about. It means things are going wrong underneath. As others suggested, wouldn't be at all surprised if the underlying damage is far worse.



i would chase the crack out first, don't cut a section out of the board just yet. Then you can assess the best way to fix it, when you know the full extent of the damage. If you just cut around the visible crack, you might miss the full extent of the damage, and end up removing material that doesn't need to be removed.

Sandman- wrong sorry.
If you want to dry it out it needs crack side down and vent plug in. Bit of heat from the sun and gravity. A paper towel wick will assist also. Crack side up and particularly with vent open will do nothing, if anything allow water to seep in further.

How big is the soft area?

Looks like a possibility of a compression fracture. This happens when the board bends slightly, the sandwich buckles inwards, cracking the external layer, then springs back when board straightens. If this is the case you have a structurally weakened board, and it should be fixed, to re-establish structural integrity.
I'd grind along the crack, to see where the crack finishes. If it's not leaking water, then it probably finishes within the sandwich. But any way, keep grinding until you no longer see the crack. then repair with a layer of glass at the bottom of the damage, then bog up to near the surface, taper the glass on the surface over about 2cm away from the damage. So that a 3 layer s of glass over the top ties in to the old structure.

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Sandman1221 said..

And if that is an area you hit with your foot often, think about covering it with dual density deck padding, both sides of course. I did that on my board to cover some slightly soft spots (but no cracks) where the mast was hitting the concave deck ridge, and it is good.

This is an interesting idea, with one major flaw.

A very common failure is to crack the deck under the footpads ( however it occurs, say jumping... ). You dont see the crack because it is nicely hidden from view by the cushy pads. Then some time later you see water venting out somewhere else.

Same thing occurs when people attach a nose-protector - after a few crashes water starts seeping out from beneath the plastic.

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Mark _australia said..
Sandman- wrong sorry.
If you want to dry it out it needs crack side down and vent plug in. Bit of heat from the sun and gravity. A paper towel wick will assist also. Crack side up and particularly with vent open will do nothing, if anything allow water to seep in further.

How big is the soft area?

I was assuming it was a surface crack, and so any water would be just underneath (but he said no water, which supports a surface crack), and so the water would not have access to the underlying layers and core. If that is the case, then what I said is good, out in sun is just making sure no dampness under the crack. Do not want to heat up a board with no through crack in the sun with the vent plug in place!

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mathew said..

Sandman1221 said..

And if that is an area you hit with your foot often, think about covering it with dual density deck padding, both sides of course. I did that on my board to cover some slightly soft spots (but no cracks) where the mast was hitting the concave deck ridge, and it is good.

This is an interesting idea, with one major flaw.

A very common failure is to crack the deck under the footpads ( however it occurs, say jumping... ). You dont see the crack because it is nicely hidden from view by the cushy pads. Then some time later you see water venting out somewhere else.

Same thing occurs when people attach a nose-protector - after a few crashes water starts seeping out from beneath the plastic.

If it is just a surface crack, and is sealed up, covering with dual density padding will give the area more strength and prevent a heel from damaging the same spot.

So you need to know if it a surface crack or not, try taking a metal dental pick, or even a sewing pin, and insert it into the open crack and see if you can feel the crack go deeper or not. If it is just the top layer it should be easy to tell since probe will hit a hard epoxy cloth layer, if the probe slides in through the outer shell into the core then you know it is more serious. Though lack of water coming out tells me it is just a surface crack, as long as you are sure there is no water underneath.

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Sandman1221 said..

Mark _australia said..
Sandman- wrong sorry.
If you want to dry it out it needs crack side down and vent plug in. Bit of heat from the sun and gravity. A paper towel wick will assist also. Crack side up and particularly with vent open will do nothing, if anything allow water to seep in further.

How big is the soft area?

I was assuming it was a surface crack, and so any water would be just underneath (but he said no water, which supports a surface crack), and so the water would not have access to the underlying layers and core. If that is the case, then what I said is good, out in sun is just making sure no dampness under the crack. Do not want to heat up a board with no through crack in the sun with the vent plug in place!

Assumption not good - so drill a hole, stick a wick in it upside down in sun. Safest bet

Anyway - this is very hard to assess from the pic and how soft is soft? I'm with decrepit that is needs to be sanded out totally and if you've gone thru the PVC layer take it to a pro.
If its only the glass thats cracked (doubtful) then just glass over.

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Mark _australia said..

If you want to dry it out it needs crack side down and vent plug in. Bit of heat from the sun and gravity. A paper towel wick will assist also. Crack side up and particularly with vent open will do nothing, if anything allow water to seep in further.

Presumably so the air expands inside and it escapes through the crack taking any moisture with it. If you leave the air vent open air will also escape through that.